Hazel Park

Hazel Park resident receives national screenwriting award

By Andy Kozlowski
C & G Staff Writer

HAZEL PARK — Hailey O’Brien never knew she would catch the screenwriting bug. A college student studying psychology, she had pictured herself helping others by listening to their stories. And while she still plans to do that, now she has received national attention for her ability to tell stories of her own invention — another plot twist she didn’t see coming.

The 26-year-old Hazel Park resident is the 2012 recipient of the Michael Collyer Memorial Fellowship in Screenwriting, a national honor she received at the 64th Writers Guild Awards in New York City on Feb. 19. She was nominated for the award by Joel Silvers, her screenwriting professor at Wayne State University.

O’Brien, who’s been taking screenwriting classes for only about a year, will be graduating from WSU in May with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a minor in film studies.

The fellowship is a national competition for undergraduate seniors pursuing a career in screenwriting, in which the winner receives a $10,000 stipend and is mentored over the following year by an established screenwriter. The money and mentorship makes it practical to buckle down and focus on finishing her screenplay, “Losing Grace,” which she proposed in her application for the fellowship.

“I was really shocked,” O’Brien said of winning. “It’s a national competition. They would be receiving really good stuff, and I’m sure they did, but I hadn’t heard anything for a while. I just knew the awards were sometime in February, so when I hadn’t heard anything in January, I figured they had moved on. But then they called — I thought it was a bill collector — and when I checked the voicemail the next day, I hung up in the middle and called my professor right away.”

She said she’s very thankful for all the work Silvers did nominating her.

“I couldn’t even say how grateful I am,” O’Brien said.

While she can’t divulge much about “Losing Grace” at this point, she did say it’s about a tragedy that strikes two families and how they cope with grief in different ways. As the seasons progress, a character from one family becomes increasingly mired in Christian dogma, literal to a fault at her children’s expense, while the other family tries to find peace through spirituality reminiscent of American Indians.

The story deals with elements of mental illness and the lasting effects of one’s search for happiness or redemption. O’Brien’s psychology background helped inform the tale, as did life in general.

“I think it was a compilation of my life’s experiences and how I’ve dealt with grief or guilt and seen others deal with it,” O’Brien said. “I’ve long been fascinated by the polar routes people can take to get to places when faced with the same tragedies, and how they come out of it. I think psychology definitely contributes to how I create my characters; we know where they’ve come from to see how they react to certain things, what would push their buttons.”

O’Brien’s screenwriting professor said that O’Brien possesses many good traits for a storyteller.

“Her unique qualities are an incredible amount of psychological insight into character and character development — her major in psychology is something she brings to her work as a screenwriter,” Silvers said. “She also has special sympathy and insight into female characters and children.

“I am extremely, extremely pleased and proud to have her represent not only my own teaching, but the university and city she comes from,” he said. “We have a wealth of talent here in Detroit that often gets overlooked, but we have a lot to say to the entire nation and the world in terms of producing films.”

A 2002 Davison High graduate who moved to Detroit in 2003 to attend WSU and relocated to Hazel Park in 2004, O’Brien is the daughter of Shelley O’Brien, the Hazel Park city manager's management assistant.

She has served as Hazel Park’s representative for the Millennial Mayors Congress, a group of civic leaders working together to address challenges in the Detroit region. She’s currently working on a resolution for vibrancy mapping, which is identifying a city’s strong points that can be better utilized to attract more young people to the community.

She also volunteers at Webb Elementary, where her son attends kindergarten, and she plans to continue working as a psychology technician at Lake Forest Health Services, a residential rehabilitation facility for adults with brain injuries.

“She’s an outstanding young lady who’s very bright,” said Hazel Park City Manager Ed Klobucher. “We’re glad she lives in Hazel Park and she’s brought honor to our community. We expect great things from her in the future.”

The fellowship is a golden opportunity for O’Brien, but her life’s story is far from written. She knows she wants to do something that makes a difference in people’s lives, and she wants to help better Hazel Park. But she’s not shelving her writing ambitions.

“If anything, this has provided me with the confidence to know I can go for it,” O’Brien said. “I would love to have success being a screenwriter and being able to do that professionally, but I don’t know that I would ever only write; I don’t feel I’d have enough experiences to be inspired, just sitting home writing. I think you get ideas and inspiration from things you do and people you meet. So I’ll always do something else.”

You can reach C & G Staff Writer Andy Kozlowski at akozlowski@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1104.